“We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks in two, and each of those into two again, and at each road you must make a decision. Even on a biological level life is not like a river but like a tree. It does not move towards unity but away from it and the creatures grow further apart as they increase in perfection. Good, as it ripens, becomes continually more different not only from evil but from other good.
“I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A sum can be put rightly: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot ‘develop’ into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, ‘with backward mutters of dissevering power’–or else not. It is still ‘either-or’. If we insist on keeping Hell (or even Earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell.”
– from The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
For some reason, I had it in my head that this quote was saying something along the lines of there being one correct path and that we must find it, but upon rereading and typing it up, I came across the peculiar last sentence of the first paragraph, which I had forgotten about.
Good, as it ripens, becomes continually more different not only from evil but from other good.
What do you think this means?
(Let’s get some responses this time, guys!)
you’re only being stereotypically Zach, so I’d say that’s just fine
hahah
I think what he’s really getting at (or at least what I hope he’s really getting at) in this excerpt is that the major component of being saved is in dying to oneself. I think the key quote in this passage is actually where he says “If we insist on keeping Hell (or even Earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell.”
As to what he says about good becoming more different as it becomes more perfect, I think he’s referring to the diversity and individualism within the Church, and that all of us “being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor 3) doesn’t mean that we’ll all be exact little replicas of each other, but rather that we will each show in our perfection some different aspect of God’s perfection, similarly to the way the different persons of the Trinity make plain different aspects of the Godhead.
At least that’s my take on it.
Thanks for the comment, Trey. And I agree, especially with your second paragraph. I think that there are implications in the differences that each of us have within the whole of God’s perfection that are overlooked often by “church people.” (and I’m, of course, including myself in that group of church people) I think that often we fail to realize that our differences are the things that make us stronger and a greater witness to God’s glory as a whole.